“For more than an hundred years past, a fondness for introducing new modes of worship into the established Religion, had prevailed; and a sect of Men had risen, who, thinking it meritorious to manifest the compunction they felt for their offences, by outward signs, would put on a sack-cloth, in the same manner it was ordered by the antient Law; and from a strained interpretation they gave of the passage in the Psalmist, _ad flagella paratus sum_, flagellated themselves in public; whence they were called by the name of _Flagellants_. John Gerson, the Chancellor of the University of Paris, and the purest Theologian of that age, wrote a Book against them. Yet the holy Pontiffs, considering then that Sect with more indulgence than former ones had done, shewed much countenance to it; so that multitudes of Men, all over Italy, in these days inlist in it, as in a kind of a religious militia, thinking to obtain by that means forgiveness of their sins. Distinguished by different colours, blue, white, and black, in the same manner as the Green and Blue factions, though proposing to themselves different objects, were formerly in Rome, they likewise engrossed the attention of the public, and in several places gave rise to the warmest contentions. “The introduction which was made of these ceremonies into France, where they had till then been almost unknown, forwarded the designs of certain ambitious persons, the contempt they brought on the person of the King, having weakened much the regal authority. While the King mixed thus with processions of Flagellants, and the most distinguished among his Courtiers followed his example, Charles, Cardinal of Lorrain, who was one of the party, was, by the coldness of the evening, thrown into a violent fever, attended with a most intense pain in his head; and a delirium as well as continual watchfulness having followed, he expired two days before Christmas.” The Historian we have just quoted says, in another place, that the King was principally induced to perform the above superstitious processions, by the solicitations of his Confessor, Father Edmund Auger, who wrote a Book on that subject, and of John Castelli, the Apostolic Nuntio in France; and that the weak complaisance shewn to him on that occasion, by the Chancellor Birague, and the Keeper of the Seals, Chiverny, encouraged him much to pursue his plan in that respect, notwithstanding the strong advices to the contrary, that were given him by Christopher de Thou, President of the Parliament, and Pierre Brulart, President of the _Chambre des Enquêtes_.